The uneven month of May has passed

May is at the turn of spring and summer, and the uneven temperature affects the physical perception of people in different regions. The same is true of the perceived body temperature in different sectors of the entertainment market this month.

The much-anticipated summer season of the film industry is about to open next month. This month, cinemas are still new films, "Life is Not Familiar" borrowed May 1st box office exceeded 1 billion, overseas blockbusters have also landed on the screen, although the film's reputation has declined, but the market has obviously picked up, and it is already creating momentum for the summer file.

The drama market is still a little chilly. The number of new films continued to decline, and no blockbusters appeared. What arouses public discussion is often bad movies that people are angry with, or off-site events of popular dramas. It seems that since the "Rage" fire, the drama market has also experienced that long season.

After a dismal first half, the variety show finally has two popular IPs "Riding the Wind and Waves 2023" and "Rap Peak Showdown 2023" to support the scene this month. The two major short video platforms, Douyin and Kuaishou, have sent positive news to the market, running along different paths of profit and expansion respectively.

Of course, the hot is still the offline performance market, in early May barley once told poison eyes that during the May Day holiday, barley has sold more than 1,500 projects, an increase of 2.5 times over last year. Throughout May, social media was frequently flooded by singers' concerts.

Whether it is cold or hot, it is a normal phenomenon of the change of seasons. Hopefully, next month, different venues will come alive.

Movie: The first billion movie after the Spring Festival

Thanks to the blessing of the May 1st file, the total box office in May reached 3.409 billion, close to 5 times that of last year, and achieved an increase of nearly 20% compared with April. A total of 51 new films were released, compared with only 18 in the same period last year; The cumulative number of moviegoers was 86.74 million, compared with 21.21 million last year; Attendance reached 6.4%, also far ahead of the 2.4% recorded in the same period last year.

The monthly champion came from the May 1st film "Life is Unfamiliar". This is also the first movie with a box office of more than one billion this year in addition to the top three "Manjiang Red", "The Wandering Earth 2" and "Bear Haunted, Bear Core".

The difficulty of the billion mark in the non-schedule time reflects the sluggish box office of this year's film market on weekdays. The supply of comedy films within the schedule has proved to be still the strongest living force at the box office level, and even comedy with an average reputation still has a huge market demand and should receive further attention from the supply side.

In second and third place are two Hollywood blockbusters "Fast and Furious 10" and "Guardians of the Galaxy 3". The two works not only have a decline in box office compared with their predecessors in the series, but also have an overall decline compared with Hollywood blockbusters such as "Godzilla vs. King Kong" (1.232 billion) that are close to the same period in previous years.

Unsurprisingly, this momentum will continue with "Spider-Man: Across the Universe" and "Transformers: The Rise of the Power Warriors" that will be released in the next few days. The overall decline in the influence of big IP imported films has become a certainty.

It is even more regrettable that May's new film failed to continue the high reputation performance in March and April. Even counting the new films released at the end of April, there are only 3 works with a Douban score of more than 7 in May (there are 9 in April), namely "Guardians of the Galaxy 3", "Gentle Shell" and "Dream Home", and the current box office of the latter two is only 10.65 million and 2 million respectively. Poison Eye pointed out in the review article of May 1st that the release of high-reputation films is also a kind of audience overlap to some extent, which is not conducive to the release of their respective box office potential. In the five-day holiday, there was no 7-point film, and in the long run, it could only be "no one watches when it is on a good film, and no good film when someone watches it", forming a vicious circle of the audience's impression of the film market.

June will usher in the beginning of the summer file, and some domestic blockbusters that are rumored to be interested in the summer file have not yet been officially announced, and among the films that have been confirmed to be released, the number of heavyweight commercial blockbusters is small. In addition to the aforementioned two Hollywood big IPs, there are more potential players who need to rely on the spread of word of mouth after the screening to achieve a "counterattack", such as "Crazy Element City", "Disappearing Her" and "I Love You! and so on. The real highlight may have to wait for July.

In front of "Long Moon Ember Ming", there is not one who can fight

Overall, the May drama market was cold.

The first is a decrease in quantity. A total of 21 dramas (longer than 20 minutes) were broadcast this month, and the number of new arrivals continued to decline year-on-year, the lowest month in May this year.

Secondly, in terms of popularity, no works that surpass "Long Moon Ember Ming" appeared. According to Lighthouse Professional Edition, among the top 10 popular dramas in May, "Long Moon Ember Ming" still ranked first, and it was the only feature film with a double-digit market share of broadcasts.

But from the perspective of genre, the market supply in May is quite rich, and there are some types that are themselves "minority" in domestic dramas. For example, the first drama "Houlang" with the background of traditional Chinese medicine, the "old man" drama "Grandma's New World" with "the old man leaving" as the main story line, "Ordinary Road" set with the workplace story of small people as the main line, and the martial arts drama "Yunxiang Chuan" and so on.

Unfortunately, most of the new dramas do not have much to say except for "new", but leave enough material for the complaints of UP owners and film and television bloggers.

Among them, the plot of urban dramas has become the focus of group ridicule. In the first episode of "Back Wave", the female protagonist delivered takeaway timed out, and the male protagonist refused to accept the intention of theorizing with her, but she didn't expect that she directly threw the takeaway on the male protagonist's face, and this scene has been taken by many people as the tone of the whole drama and was scared back.

"Ordinary Road" shouts the slogan "embodying the road to career advancement for newcomers", but the overly rich "playing junior" material has also attracted most of the attention on social media.

And the brilliance of the fairy tale drama "Heart Protection" is outside the play. Due to the slight separation of the protagonist's character before and after 15 episodes, some screenwriters came out to claim that "I was not a screenwriter before and after 15 episodes", Jiu Lu Feixiang was scolded on the hot search, which caused Stellar Gravity CEO Wang Yixi and the screenwriter of "Canglan Recipe" to speak out, Wang Yixi said: "No one should make up lies for personal fame and fortune to deceive the audience and hurt the efforts of all the main creators." ”

But no matter what, "Heart Protection" is already the bottoms of the May puppet. According to Lighthouse Professional Edition, the show ranked fourth in May with a 7.9% market share of feature films, and won the 14-day Youku video crown.

The ancient puppet market in May should not be so cold. In the original schedule, there is also the long-lost palace fighting drama "Step by Step Qinglian", and the ancient puppet drama "Ning'an Like a Dream" starring Bai Lu and Zhang Linghe. However, both dramas eventually announced the withdrawal of files for "technical reasons". Another ancient puppet drama "Changfeng Du" originally planned to be released on May 20 also announced that the material was suspended.

In the first half of this year, the ancient puppet hit drama "Long Moon Ember Ming" has not yet found a successor. Although judging from the Douban score of 5.6 in "Long Moon Ember Ming", it is not a pity for most audiences. But this traffic, no one on the platform caught and continued to snowball, it is still a pity.

Variety: The topic is explosive, and it finally appears

The variety show market in May appeared flat in terms of the number of new ones: According to the data of Lighthouse Professional Edition, a total of 20 new variety shows were launched in May, compared with 32 last month, which at first glance declined, but the long-awaited blockbuster in the entire variety show market finally appeared in May, which also made the report card in May appear bright.

"Riding the Wind 2023", as the "Sister Lang" IP that has reached the fourth season, has been full of topics as always, leading the new variety show in the public opinion popularity list of the May Lighthouse Professional Edition data, ranking second in the monthly list, and also becoming the only new variety show on the monthly list in the top ten of the public opinion popularity monthly list.

This season's "Sister Lang" focuses on "internationalization" from guests to link design and song selection, and it is Mei Yili Bud from Japan who dances the "two-dimensional divine comedy" "Pure Land of Bliss" from Japan. At present, the show has progressed to its second performance, and judging from the discussion, the public still seems to be enthusiastic about the "Sister Lang" series.

Another strong performance is "Rap Peak Showdown 2023", as a classic IP of rap programs, it won the championship in the May monthly list of Lighthouse Pro Broadcast Market Share. It is only in the popularity of public opinion of the show that it seems that the dialogue between the little ghost and music critic Liang Yuan in "The Voice of God" has more contracted the controversy in the field of music synthesis this month.

In addition to the music mix, social and gaming reality shows also launched new shows in May. iQiyi launched the "all-female lineup" outdoor game reality show "Beautiful Battle"; "Come to Live Brothers", which plays with the relationship between acquaintances, is a travel experience reality show of the 0713 brothers group; "Fifty Kilometers Peachblossom Season 3" broadcast on May 28 is still the same old Peachblossom social learning, and has won two days of public opinion heat.

The last day of May ended with the return of a new season of "Escape Room". The return of classic variety show IPs is also destined to inject new vitality into the entire Q2 variety show market.

Short Video: Profitability or Expansion?

Kuaishou released its Q1 2023 earnings report this month. According to the financial report, Kuaishou achieved an adjusted net profit of 42 million yuan in the first quarter, achieving overall profitability at the group level after listing for the first time.

Among them, Kuaishou achieved revenue of 25.217 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 19.7%; The net loss narrowed sharply, from a loss of 6.254 billion yuan in the same period last year to 876 million yuan, a decrease of 86%.

Profitability is inseparable from cost control. Kuaishou's sales and marketing expenses decreased by 8.1% year-on-year and 10.4% sequentially to RMB8.7 billion from RMB9.5 billion in the same period in 2022. R&D expenditure decreased by 17.1% year-on-year and 15.3% quarter-on-quarter to MOP2.9 billion from MOP3.5 billion in the same period last year.

As early as last year, Kuaishou released domestic and foreign revenue separately, and took the lead in announcing quarterly profits in domestic business in the second quarter of last year. The realization of profits for the whole year last year also means that Kuaishou is increasingly moving towards a stable path, like other domestic Internet listed companies, bidding farewell to the era of expansion at the cost of losses.

Douyin seems to be looking for rapid expansion.

On the 16th of this month, the third ecological conference of Douyin e-commerce. Wei Wenwen, president of Douyin e-commerce, said that in the past year, Douyin e-commerce GMV increased by 80% year-on-year, of which shelf GMV accounted for 30%. In 2023, Douyin e-commerce will invest 10 billion in cash and a number of support measures to help merchants develop.

In contrast, Kuaishou e-commerce GMV increased by 32.5% year-on-year in 2022 and 28% year-on-year in the first quarter of this year. If only from the perspective of growth, the expansion rate of Douyin e-commerce is still very amazing in the context of the overall slowdown in the industry.

According to the data of the new list test, as of 12 o'clock on May 31, the proportion of Douyin's fan accounts in the past 30 days was 38.07%, a decrease of 1.55% from the previous statistical cycle, indicating that Douyin's traffic market as a whole is still in a downward trend.

Some practitioners have previously revealed to Poison Eyes that Douyin's traffic distribution is further narrowing, the era of flood irrigation has passed, and Douyin is also seeking cost-effective traffic monetization.

E-commerce is undoubtedly an important means to increase the value of traffic. For example, the duck-headed brother who became popular in the Zibo barbecue tide because of his handsome appearance started a live broadcast business on Douyin. According to cast data, the average sales per game of the account @Zibo duckhead brother several live broadcasts with goods is expected to be 10W-25W. After the performance was relatively average, after opening the live broadcast, the account lost a lot of fans.

The number one account in Douyin's popularity this month is "Music Teacher Blossoms and Wealth", that is, the main singer of the children's song "Digging in What Garden Dig, Digging and Digging" in the spread boom, Teacher Huang. This is also the first time that Douyin has become the main birthplace and communication field in the spread of hot memes on the whole network.

But Mr. Huang has not yet started his career as a goods taker, but the high tips received in the live broadcast room after becoming famous have caused a lot of criticism from public opinion. The channel of traffic and live streaming does not seem to be as smooth as imagined.